


Empathiser

by LittleGreenPlasticSoldier



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Date Rape, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, F/M, Fear, Force-Feeding, Guilt, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Paranoia, Revenge, Stalking, description/discussion of date rape, discussion of reporting rape, scaring the shit out of a guy (you) by using homosexual non-con ideas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 20:13:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13771686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleGreenPlasticSoldier/pseuds/LittleGreenPlasticSoldier
Summary: This story is told as though you are Paul, Y/N’s date.You’ve treated Y/N badly, and her friends are furious.  In fact, you’re an asshole, and you’re going to get what’s coming to you.(Written for @evansrogerskitten Ash’s Hottest Dean Challenge. I got No.23 ““These aren’t “supplements”, they’re roofies.” plus the gif included below.HEED THE WARNINGS.  Full synopsis with spoilers in the notes)





	Empathiser

**Author's Note:**

> SUMMARY WITH SPOILERS:  
> Paul and Y/N go on a date. Dean and Sam spy Paul slipping a roofie to Y/N. They intervene and Paul wakes up in his own motel room, cuffed to a chair with Dean and Sam angry and Y/N still unconscious. The brothers intimidate him, and force-feed him a roofie. Paul wakes in the woods, unsure of whether he’s been assaulted, but Sam implies he has (although he hasn’t). Paul confesses to regular date-raping, and Y/N punishes him for the crime with canon-level violence and not-shooting at him as he runs away. Paul goes through a lot of the thoughts that sexual violence survivors might go through, mainly self-doubt and shame, but he’s also somewhat shocked and very indignant about it (possibly in denial) and resents the process without any self-awareness or contrition. Sam, Dean and Y/N prank him, inciting paranoia, and eventually contribute to multiple charges of date-rape against him.  
> I have no experience with how different U.S. states do their STI screens, nor how they conduct a report of rape.

“Dickbag.  Wake up.”  

You heard it.  You must’ve - it registered in there somewhere but not enough to make any real difference.

_Doof-doof._

That you notice, on the side of your face, like someone banging a hollow tank.

“Wake up, already.  We’re bored.”

Your eyes creak open, and you see your own thighs, well-lit and bleary, and try to raise your head.  Which you can, with some work, and sort of balance it on top of your neck to blink around at the brown walls, see shapes and such, but the hamster hasn’t hit the wheel, not just yet.  It takes a few more breaths for you to realise there’s a face in front of you, right at your height.  It’s a man with short hair, a staring man, who looks very angry.

“Um… who-”

“Come on, Assface.  Blink it off.”

You frown your eyebrows into the job and try to clear the view, but your headache won’t move.  You take a few deeper breaths, squint around the space and see another man sitting on the end of a bed, looking thunderous.  “Is this-  this is my motel room?”

“Yep. And hey,” the one in front gestures to the bed, beyond his friend, “look who’s here, Fucko.  Right where you wanted her.”

A sore swallow and a few blinking breaths more, and you see better now, the form laying on the bed behind the dark stranger.  It’s Y/N, from last night, out for the count.

Something has gone terribly wrong.

“Oh. You look worried.  Is that not what you hoped for?  Y/N, out cold, on your bed?”  You’re not so out of it that you miss the venom in his tone.  His knees are barely a foot away from yours.

You sit up straighter and start to understand, and then, when you realise your hands are behind you and cannot be moved, your understanding skyrockets.

“Found your stash, by the way.”  The guy rattles the little bottle you keep and eyes off what’s inside.

“Only one left, too.”

“They’re my supp-”

 **“These aren’t “supplements”, they’re roofies.”**  He recaps the bottle and chucks it to the other guy. “What the hell are you doin’ with them, huh?”

“No.  I didn’t-” You don’t know who you should talk to. “I think she’s allergic to alcohol.  I was just helping her ba-!”  _OHhhhh shit_.  He hit you, a full slap right across the face, and you feel your neck’s skin stretched taught at the reach of it.  There are a few seconds that repeat themselves, but you’re still upright and awake.

The guy leans forward and points at your face, the sort of point that’s metronome steady and right ready to be some other kind of beat.  “You listen to me, Jerkoff-”

“It’s Paul,” says the other guy, and he holds up your wallet.  No one seems to care about you being hit.  No one’s nervous but you.  It’s nearly morning and he’s got your wallet and you’re tied to a chair.  They could’ve beaten you and mugged you and all sorts of shit but instead they’ve waited for you to wake up.  Someone else holding your wallet, your identity, feels like an intrusion because what’s going on is so far out of your league, so beyond your comprehension, you’re still nervous about  _theft_.

“Is it?  Do I care?  You sure it isn’t Dickcheese McShithead?”  The finger’s been put away, but the guy still leans close enough that you can’t reasonably look at anything else.

“Paul Walters of 499 Hartley Place, Duluth.”  He plucks out your library card from three years ago, pockets that, then pulls out your credit card, too.  You think to say something, because he’s picking up a pen and opening a notebook, but he looks right at you, like he wants you to say something.  You shut your mouth and he, unhurried, clicks the pen ready, and starts to copy.

The violent one leans back into his seat and looks at you, rolling his tongue around behind his teeth.  You make a mental note to report your cards stolen.

“You remember Duluth, Dean?” He puts away the credit card, tugs out the driver’s licence, and stars recording that, too, before looking up to ask, “We killed a- what was it?”

The Dean guy tilts his head a lazy left, so he can talk to his friend. “Oh  _yeah_ , Hartley Place.  That’s a nice street.  Lush.  You know why I remember that?  Because we went down Hartley Place to get to Hunter’s Park.”

Whatshisname bounces with a small scoff and they smirk at each other, before he goes back to writing.

“Beautiful,” Dean tells you.  “Lots of marshland, boardwalks.  And a lake.”  

“They call it apond! It’s like, 15 feet deep!  _Maybe_ ,” says his friend, not looking away from his work.

“Deep enough.” The way Dean dead-eyes you starts a proper panic in your chest.  You start to look around like something might help.

These really are cuffs on your wrists and they really are done up snug.  Your legs aren’t tied and, as much as you’d like to just  _know_ , you can’t help but lean forward and try to stand.  Dean doesn’t move.  He’s completely indifferent to you trying out your situation. Probably because it’s pointless: The chair almost slides out from under you because the cuffs are tied to a rail at the back.  And still, no one seems to care.

Dean’s waited patiently for you to resettle.  He hadn’t felt the need to move at all, and no matter how much you try, you cannot shift the chair through the deep carpet, can’t lean away from the hate he’s gathering in front of you while he waits for you to finish being annoying.  Then you see the moment it snowballs into a need to talk, like he’s been shoved in the back, and it makes you freeze -  “You’re a lucky son of a bitch, you know that? You scored a date with Y/N.” - But that’s all he says, for now.

Your wallet is all tidy again, thinner, and the guy puts his elbows on his knees, watching you listen.  He has an intensity you haven’t seen before - not cocky, and not wrathful like Dean - just completely unafraid.  The opposite of you.

You look between the two of them, wishing they’d speak just so you could begin somewhere, not that you’ve ever talked your way out of anything.  Every inhale has potential, but you can’t think of any words in the face of their steadiness. You can’t outrun this storm.

Dean picks up where he left off.  “See, we actually know Y/N, Asshole.  We know her a helluva lot better than you do.  We know how good she is, how much better than you she is, and  _she is our friend_.”  Holy shit he says those last four words through his teeth.

Whatshisname sits up, kind of readies himself for something.  

“So, when she meets up with some rando guy for a  _nice night_ ,” Dean bites, “we tag along, and when we see that rando asshole putting some shit in her drink, we don’t fuckin’ sit on our asses about it.”

“I- I didn’t-”

Dean raises his hand, ready to strike-

“Okay! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”  You have no idea how to make it sound real, or true.  And you mean it, you think.  You’re sorry you’re here.  You’re sorry you lied.  He lowers the threat and takes hold of his knee.  It’s been a long time since you’ve seen a guy this angry, let alone been within arm’s reach of him.  He’s bigger than you, too.  It reminds you of all the fights you watched in high school and how you did everything you could to get out of contact sports.

“You don’t know the first thing about sorry.” His tone reminds you of wood on stone.  “Tell me this: She the first woman you’ve done this to?”

It’s just… Sex is so hard.  Talking you can do but the whole thing between talking and sex, it’s so awkward and you’re never smooth enough.  Three dates in a row you said something stupid, out of nerves, and you’re sure it’s what made them not call you back.  These pills take a nice time to kick in and then they’re all gooey and happy to be there and it’s not like you hurt them - everyone’s okay.  “No.  I don’t even know how long it takes to work.”

“Oh really?” His pinched smile says doesn’t believe you.  “Well, let’s find out. Sam?”

Sam stands up, opening the pill bottle.  He’s far bigger than you had judged, tall and athletic, and suddenly you can’t recall the last time a guy even touched you.  A few steps closer and he asks, “You gonna take it? Or do we have to make you?”

Oh,  _shit_.  Oh shit oh shit oh shit you don’t want to.  You really don’t.  You know it won’t hurt you long term, but you just don’t-   _Fuck!_ “Okay! Okay!” You’re saying it but Dean doesn’t care.  His grip on your jaw is surely bruising, like he’ll just pull the whole thing off your head so the other can put the pill down your throat.  He forces your cheeks between your teeth, wrenches your chin down with his palm, and the pill is shoved so far back your gag reflex heaves on nothing, can’t even get a purchase with that big hand pushing your tongue down so hard.  It hurts your neck, stretches your lips, and the grunts and tight breaths feel all too primal for you.  Just their strength is scary enough.

Then Sam, you think, grabs your hair, knuckles to scalp, and your head’s tilted back again, the mouth of a bottle roughly pushed between your lips and tipped so that whiskey sloshes in and down your chin. You swallow awkwardly, wondering if the pill went down your windpipe, even, since you didn’t feel it at all, and grunt at the burn in your throat and nose.  

Sam doesn’t let you go.  He waits for you to open your eyes and look up at him, gives you a full beat of seeing him towering over you, your ear by his belt, before giving your skull a little wobble, showing you how he’s got it.  He hitches the corner of his mouth and drags his fingertips heavy through your hair.  It’s infuriatingly nice, makes you shiver all over, and he winks at you like  _You’re Welcome_.

A few coughs and a crank of your jaw, and you’re just as you were, just wetter.  You can pretend that didn’t happen, you’re sure.  It is strange, though, to not be able to wipe your face and just sit there, dripping onto your shirt and lap.  The patches make it look like you pissed your pants.

And you know the pill won’t work that quickly, but as they sit back in their places, your whole body seems to do a preemptive check - skin, guts, scalp and back - all of you tightening, ready to start feeling the affects.

“So here’s the fun part.”  Dean leans back and keeps talking while Sam goes to the bathroom and washes his hands.  “When you dosed Y/N, and took her outside, we followed you, and Sam here knocked you out while I took Y/N out of your creepy-ass hands.”

Sam leans against the bathroom doorway as he dries his hands, giving you a mirthless smile.  You don’t even remember seeing them.

“That was,” he looks at his watch, “six hours ago. Now, you probably liked the look of Y/N because she’s strong, bright, pretty.  You probably think nobody else thinks she’s pretty.  Like you’re doing her a favour or some shit.”

You can’t remember exactly why you liked Y/N.  She did look kinda kick-ass, the kind of woman you wouldn’t normally go for, actually.  And bit intimidating and sassy, once you got talking, but she was certainly always pretty…

“Just because a woman isn’t with a guy, doesn’t mean there isn’t a guy who wants to be with her.”  He huffs a breath then, pushes his jaw and blinks like he’s said something he shouldn’t have.  “And like I said, you don’t know her like we do.”

Y/N’s still laying on the bed, on her side, with her hair brushed off her face and her shoes removed.   A different flavour of warning starts to warm your gut.  “No, she- she’s definitely pretty,” you stammer.  “I mean- I didn’t think about what anyone else thought of her.  She was nice to me and I thought I’d hit the jackpot!”

Dean’s head tilts back on his neck, and Sam glowers at you, because you are currently proving to yourself how awful you truly are with words in tense times. You try again.  “I was just happy she looked at me.  Definitely outta my lea-hhheague-”  Suddenly a wave of lightness flows through your limbs, and you rock forward a little.

“She’s a quarter of a day ahead of you,” he says, pointing at her over there.  “So before you nod off, let me pop a few things into that stupid skull of yours.  You’re going to be out, for hours, with us.”  He kind of smiles his eyes, all calm and controlled and condescending.  You notice his grazed knuckles, and then the small cut on his lip, almost healed.  He sees you notice, and his smile goes sideways, because although you actually have no clue of the scale of this guy, you’re starting to get an idea.  It’s the most peculiar thing to have your brain panicking and your heart fluffing the pillow for a nice nap.  It’s like your frantic mind is in a glass box that’s sinking into the bottom of the ocean.

But okay, so, they probably thought of all this talk while you were KO’d. So he’s probably bluffing, just jerking you around.

“You don’t know us, Paul.  You don’t know what we do, who we are-”

“What we like.”  Sam pushes off from the doorway and walks past you to the bags by the door, saying, “I like your jeans.”

What does that mean?!  He’s going to steal your pants?  What the  _fuck?_   Who bluffs about being gay?

Dean watches him go by and this slow- oh god, it’s the darkest smile.  He blinks real easy and licks his lip to bite it, saying, “You don’t need new jeans, Sam.  Your jeans are  _fine_.”

You can’t get a proper look over your shoulder to see what Sam is doing, something with a bag, but you look back when Dean says, “ _Ohoooo_  sorry, yep. I gotcha.” He points at him. “You like  _jeans_. I can’t keep up with your euphemisms.”

Sam scoffs in reply.

“Is he even your size?” Dean asks, like he’s trying to make Sam laugh.  “How are you gonna fit? You’re a big boy Sam and they’s  _tight!”_

“What?” Wait, are they together? You thought he wanted Y/N.  “I’m not into guys.  I am not- I’m nuh-” Another flush of lethargy pulls you toward the ground.  Your thoughts start to dribble out your ear rather than to your mouth.  The only thing that holds on is the erratic throb of dread, rooted in helplessness.

“You know what you should be more worried about, Paul?  Y/N.”

Sam appears again, holding a great big bag that’s not yours.  He drops it on the floor with a clanking thud and inside you can see a shotgun barrel, wooden handles.  Your head starts to feel like it’ll just slip off your neck.  You start to fight sleep.

“See, Y/N’s gonna wake up soon.  And she’ll have a good chunk of the day to decide what to do to you in your state.  You think she’ll be upset?”

“I hope we don’t get bored with the waiting,” says Sam. He looks at you, gives you a good once over like he’s measuring your body from heels to hair.  “Yeah, I’d fit,” he mutters, pushing on the fly of his pants.  

The other guy peers at him, trying not to smile.  Sam gives a small shrug back, then pulls out a machete - a proper fuck-off Indiana Jones blade, made for slashing - and lays it on the floor.  

Your brain won’t work fast enough to word through everything you’re seeing.  It makes you jerk against the cuffs, instinctive but useless.  “M- No- I sor-” Your last piece of linear thought is hysterical, but your body can’t get it out.

“Y/N’s an actual hunter, Paul.  A fucking good one.”  

 _A hunter? She’s hunts? I can’t run, I ca-_ Darkness takes over, and you let your face fall slack, slumping into the peaceful sleep.  

“Good luck, Dickbag.”

…

Pine needles and dry dirt press against your cheek, but laying down is nice. Vaguely you can hear a conversation nearby- “I’m still not sure about the tape.  Seems pervy.” “Trust me, he needs a physical sensation to go with this.  The fright is good, but discomfort or pain has to be a part of it to make it stick.” “People do worse things for fun.”  “Not the point, Dean.”

You drag your knuckles along the ground until your hands can lay flat by your shoulders.  It’s hard to get up though, hard to even lift your head, and you’ve got a terrible vaseline-like flavour on your gums. Then you hear more talking, and drop your elbows, hoping they haven’t noticed you moving.

“W- uuh, so… did you use lube?”  There’s a good pause then, and Sam says “That’s a bit personal, Dean.  I think you’re aware of the… benefits… of lube…. You know what you can’t lube though? Teeth.”  Suddenly the compulsion to put your hand on your ass makes you twitch, but you don’t want to in front of them.  You can’t tell if he’s bluffing or not.  You’ve never-  you wouldn’t know.

“Oh well, for next time,” replies the other.

It’s quiet for a while longer then, and you figure they’ve noticed you’ve moved and they’re waiting for you to do something.  They wait a _while_ , letting you make sure you’re okay, you guess.  So once all your limbs have checked in, you peel yourself off the dirt so you can kneel up, and as you brush off the forest-floor debris, you find you’re more functional than expected, although terribly uncomfortable.

“About fuckin’ time.”

You glance to your left and there they are - Sam, Y/N, and the guy who hit you, Dean, who pushes off the tree. “Okay, you gotta let me get in a few-”

“Dean, no.  You said, once he woke, he’s mine.”  She has her hands on his chest, and they share a long look before he concedes.  He leans in, fishes for a kiss, then steps back.  

So it seems he got the girl then.

When Y/N turns to you, crossing the distance to your patch of cleared ground, you realise she’s dressed completely differently to last night.  Jeans and layered shirts, and looks so normal, and a whole other kind of intimidating.  Instinct tells you to get up off the ground, and that’s when you notice how weird things feel.

“Paul,” she stops and holds her hands up in warning. “Just talking, right now.”

You stop moving, tired already, and think back to what you can remember from before.  “I’m sorry, Y/N.  I wasn’t going to hurt you.”  You smile to apologise, and wonder where your car is.

“Yes, you were.”

“No,” you promise, “no, I’m so careful, always.  I make sure-”

“You were gonna hurt me,” she says defiantly.

“No!  Y/N, I’m telling you!  I’m really careful.  Look, the only reason I do that is because I’m so bad at the bit between the date and the- the morning after.  I’m not smooth, you know?  But I’m gentle, I use protection, I’m safe.  And when you don’t remember anything about the night - which is an okay night, I mean it’s all normal, otherwise - and for you there’s no hangover, no side effects, it’s-  _mmf!”_

She’s hit you, right beside the nose, and your head bobs back onto its place, ready for the next punch - a left that makes you stumble, and another to the cheek that folds you over.  She grabs your arm and shoulder, twisting you, guiding you down, more smoothly and forcefully than you can follow, so that your face is skidding into the pine needles again and although your head aches and your punched skin feels crushed, your dick stings sharply. That’s the pain you react to, and you can’t figure out what shape your body should be to make it stop, not that you have much choice.

This time, when she pulls your hair, it smarts like a bitch and wrenches your neck.  “A roofie is about the only way you could fuckin’ lay a hand on me, you hear? You  _hurt_  me.  Drugging me  _hurt_ me.  Making me afraid about what happened to me during lost time  _hurt me_.  And seeing as you’re such a deficient fucking asshole, by ‘hurt’, I mean this.”  She leans her weight on your head and punches you in the kidney, neat and tight, then pushes off, kicking you in the ass so hard you shift an inch.  “Get up.”

You’ve never felt this much pain before.  You can’t even map it.  You just wish you could throw up already and have it go away.

“Get up!”  Her nails scratch your neck, great handfuls of fabric hauling you off the ground and dragging you over so that you scramble your way upright.  She lets you go, leaving you to trip and sway and find your balance.  “Didn’t leave a bruise, huh?”

The guys she’s with are still by the tree, arms crossed as they stand back and watch.  You start to sweat all over and wonder if you can still talk.  “No.  I would never-” Oh God, you really are gonna puke… “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

She steps closer, faster than you can back off right now, quick enough to make you flinch.  She growls her words in your face.  “Well that’s very fucking noble of you, Paul.  You get a gold star.”

You don’t know what to do, so keep still and wait for her to talk again.

“Sam, you put his wallet back?”

She waits as Sam walks over to you and, even though you put your hand out for it, he steps behind you and slips it into your back pocket.  “Don’t worry.  I didn’t hurt you,” he whispers.  “I was gentle.  Used protection.”  He smacks your ass as he walks away. “No harm, no foul right?”

Y/N’s scowls hasn’t shifted.  “No harm, no foul.”

Your breathing is quick, and even though you feel absolutely fine  _inside_  your ass, you can feel something wet dribbling down the inside of your leg.  The hair on your thigh is stinging and your dick hurts  _so much_ , but pride keeps you from shoving your hand past your belt to see what the hell has happened there.  You’ll say anything she wants to hear, though you’re sure there’s nothing that will work right now.

Then she pulls a gun from the back of her jeans.  It’s a semi-automatic handgun, silver and hefty, but you only recognise it from movies and playstation.  Just seeing one in real life makes you step backwards.  Then you gasp and wince, trying to stand up properly and grabbing at your pants because it’s getting worse - pulling and stinging, like your dick’s snatched in the elastic of your jock.  It makes you crouch into the pain.

“It’s going to take you weeks to figure out what sorry actually looks like, Paul.  Not until you’ve had to lie to explain to everyone where the hell you were today and what you did because, gosh, you don’t actually know.  Maybe not even until you’ve been to the clinic to get yourself tested.  It’s pretty clear,” she says, checking the cartridge of her gun, “that empathy is something you don’t do on your own - it needs to be taught.  So that’s what we’ve tried to do so far; teach.  Next is punishment.”

This is ridiculous.  It’s ridiculous!  You’ve done nothing that wrong.  You’ve been kidnapped by psychos and-

“So, what’ll happen is, I’m not going to shoot you.”  She has both hands holding the gun in front of her, ready to raise and aim.

She’s not- What? What the hell?  Everything is so confusing-

“I’m going to shoot a few trees,” she tells you.  “Don’t get in the way.”

Behind her, Sam and Dean move so they can see you.  Dean nods, “Go-on.  Hop to it, Asshole.”

Sam does a little wave, his smile so fucking evil you’re compelled to turn away and hobble in the other direction.

“Faster than that, Paul!”   _POP!_

At this distance, the bullet blows bark clear off a tree, to your right, and you yelp in surprise.

So you go faster, picking up your left leg longer and higher than the other, since it can move with more ease.

 _POP!_  “Ohshit!” You don’t even know where that hit, but you heard it nearby, wood cracking at the impact.  You keep going, developing some kind of run, and now that you’ve realised they’ve taped your dick to your leg, you can kind of wince through it.  Quickly, you try to reach inside and pull it off but -  _POP!_  - “Aah!” - the tape’s too long.  You can’t even get a corner under your nails.

 _POP!_  - “Shit!” That one’s close enough that you can smell pine, maybe even feel splinters.  Your puffing turns to whimpers and your vision starts to blur with tears.

“It’s hard!  The further away they are, the smaller they look!”

“Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck-” you pant, dragging yourself away from them like a drunken ogre.

“Never again, Paul!”   _POP!_ A tree just to your right takes another hit.  “You hear me?!  I know where you live! I’mma check on you!”   _POP!_

“Oh Jesus!  Fucking Christ!”  You keep running, even when you can’t hear them talking any more. 

_POP!….        POP!_

…

In the days that follow, you have some quite out-of-body experiences.  

There’s the agonisingly slow, curse-filled removal of the duct tape.  It was stuck so well, and hurt so much to remove, that you couldn’t afford to do it in the woods, even when you thought they’d left for good.  The light was fading and it was getting cold, so you stumbled along, in roughly the same direction, for nearly two hours you thought, until you staggered out of the treeline and onto a road that led straight back to your motel on the edge of town.  You had to pay for the room and drive out of there, all without standing up straight, without checking if there were shards of wood in your hair, or if that was lube staining the crease of your jeans and not sweat.  

No amount of water or baby oil really helps with the tape. It stretches from your front pocket right round the inside of your leg to below your butt cheek.  Removing it slowly hurts exactly as much as removing it quickly.  Your dick is raw and tender for days, and you have two long, rectangular bald spots on your thighs for quite some time.  The wanking you’d usually do after a hookup doesn’t happen, and the peculiar hairless patches keep you from trying to pick up again for weeks.  (But you do spend some time fantasising about Y/N turning up, full of regret, behind that guy Dean’s back, and imagine how she’d make you feel better.)

There’s the lie you spin about the ‘food poisoning’ that was so bad you couldn’t call work, but apparently not bad enough to go to the hospital. You slipped when you were over the toilet, you say, hit your cheek on the bowl and the floor.  The evidence you hide - scorching and tender -  it throbs under your trouser pants like a neon sign saying  _Liar_ , and you swallow and hope no one can tell you woke up in the woods a few days ago.  The receptionist, Lynette, who’s about 5 years younger than you, talks about how lovely her boyfriend was when she got food poisoning and you think of that kiss Y/N and Dean had.  You don’t know why you keep thinking of that kiss.  It was like their eyes kissed first, or something, it was so soft and connected.  So _confident_ , which makes you seethe for your bad luck.  He leaned down like a hero and watched her close her eyes for him, leaned into it and got to feel her lips on his - it sticks in your mind so much and you can’t stop replaying it!  So  _fucking unfair!_

…

It isn’t until you come home the next Monday that you think of your security.  You walk in the front door and bump into a lounge chair.  It’s right there, so very ready to be walked into and, you’re sure, not where it usually is.  In fact, if you stare at the room, nothing seems to be in quite it’s usual place.  It’s as though the room’s just been tilted starboard while you were gone.  You’re probably wrong, though, just being paranoid… surely they couldn’t be bothered to do this….

Still, it’s three or four minutes before you put your keys in the bowl and put your things away.  That night, when you’re waiting for the warm water to come through in the shower, you’re lost in thought about the furniture, realising you should’ve looked at the mat to see if the indents were different, and then you notice how long you’ve been waiting.  Turning the tap even more, your hand stops, everything stops, because you thought, without ever really recording it, that the hot and cold taps were the other way around.  

More freezing water goes past, and by the time you’re willing to act like this might be a real thing, you’re shaking.  You turn on the cold tap like it might bite you and, sure enough, it warms up in a matter of seconds.

You don’t shower.  Instead you check every vase, every picture frame, and each cushion, appliance, shoe, bag, seam and underside for you don’t know what.  A bug, a mic, more tape, anything.   _They’ve fucking been in here_.  You add a new toothbrush to the shopping list.

Sometime around 2:30am, you go online and order a home surveillance system.

You stare at the Paypal receipt because it’s connected to your account and you don’t know enough about anything to know if that’s safe.  Then you tape little pieces of paper over the camera lenses of your laptop.

And when you sit in the clinic, weeks later, waiting to get the tests done, you keep thinking of how lost you were in the forest.  It was an overcast day, with rolling hills, and the trees seemed to be arranged into monotony.  Your mind kept imagining worst case scenarios that somehow got progressively worse - what if you’re here all night? Or longer? You could die out here alone! There could be black bears.  Grizzly bears!  What if you meet someone and they ask what’s going on? Or  _worse still_ , what if you meet someone you know?

You think of the mercy they didn’t show, too, and how disgustingly cruel it was to make you, a guy, end up here, in a family planning clinic.  You get why, but seriously, this is just shit guys don’t need to know about.  There’s no point, so the whole ‘lesson’ is useless… You’d never risk a pregnancy, for crap’s sake.  You’re not even confident he fucked you anyway.

It’s so surreal to sit there and have the nurse ask questions and take samples, as though you’re some slut who’s overshot her luck or something.  _It isn’t that,_ you want to tell her.  _I was raped._   Although you’re fairly sure you weren’t, not really, but you could say it here maybe.  Tell her your story, where it’s private and secret and they’d feel sorry for you, maybe shocked at how wild it got.  Say  _he_ beat you up and tried to shoot you.  Would you say Dean, or Sam?  Dean.  You could say  _rape_  and she’d rush out and get forms and a witness, call the police maybe, hold your hand.   _He hit me so hard._   Would you cry? It’s pretty embarrassing; maybe you could cry about that.   _He did this thing, with tape- I can’t even- out loud_ \-  She’d tell you your rights, or something.  But then they might have to record it.  And she might ask how you’re so sure it happened - like, how you know it wasn’t just them jerking you around with lube, and how do you really know it happened?  You could say Y/N cheated on Dean and he got jealous and creepy, but you don’t think you could find the spot in the woods again.  And also you didn’t go to the police right away, but maybe you were just too ashamed…  Maybe you should’ve practised it before you came….

On the day the results came back - all clear - you walk out of there a little taller, feeling like you could just about pretend it all never happened.  You even pause at the chemist where you usually get the pills but Simon isn’t in on Saturdays, so you go back to the car, wondering if that was a sign or not.  You sit in the driver’s seat, put the key in the ignition, then practically swallow your tongue, gasping at the feeling of duct tape.

Someone has broken into your car and taped the handbrake to the console.

 _*ding!*_  It’s your phone and the message says “You should smile more, Paul.  The test was clear ffs.  Smile!”

All the blood seems to drain from your head.  There’s no one outside the car who looks like them.  You check the backseat but that’s it - you’re too proud to actually check behind the car.

In a flurry of outrage, you thumb back, “Fuck you.  You can fuckin fuck off I never did anything to anyone you can prove-”

As you type, a second message comes through: “Let’s hope it’s not a false negative.”

You hit send and keep typing. “You fuckin psycho and your rapey asshole boyfriends can fuck off you can’t touch me. I don’t give a shit what you think” You hit send again, searching your mind for some threat you could actually pull off.

“Watch who you’re calling rapey, Paul.  You might have to admit something.”

“I’m giving your number to the cops,” you mash, “fuck you.”

“Your word against ours.  How do we know you didn’t do the tape thing for kicks? Or attention?  Everyone cries rape these days, don’t they?”

Your chest heaves, heart frantically pumping the blood to your cheeks and hands while you sit in your quiet car and listen to yourself shudder with a fear that seems to stretch across the year already.  “Not guys.  They’ll find you.”

“Well, they’ve never found us before.”

You breathe and watch the screen, too frozen to know what you can say.  They’re bluffing.

“And I figure I’m actually *your* boyfriend, since you’re my bitch.  Be good, Paulie.”

A month later, six women come forward with a full case against you, including CCTV footage of you leading them from different bars. Your days pass in a slightly altered-reality, not least because you’re entirely stunned at the size and force of the case.  Your colleagues distance themselves, and most of your friends do, too, once word gets around.  Your heart alternates between being fine during some very selective amnesia, and maintaining a steady jog of anxiety because the world beyond next week is a grey blur of uncertainty.

Out of a slow, numb sense of caution, you move to a new apartment.  And you get a new car.

Then you get a text from an another unknown number, a different one.  It’s a photo of a dead body, or a dead something in a shallow, earthen hole, with the caption “This thing killed a dad and ate his heart.  She hunted it down and we dug the grave.  Make sure you tell the truth on the stand, Paulie.”

You spend the next Christmas watching your mom cry during prison visiting hours.


End file.
